Actor Ben Platt Speaks on Anti-Semitism as Musical Revival of “Parade” Opens on Bdwy

By: Jared Evan & Daniella Doria

Ben Platt, star of the gorgeous Broadway revival of the musical Parade, spoke to The New York Post, describing how hard, yet important it is for him and the rest of the talented cast tell the tragic story of antisemitism in the South.

Ben Platt admits it’s a bit strange to be starring in a Broadway musical about antisemitism during an upsurge of hate crimes against Jewish people.

“It’s sad but it’s also really galvanizing and motivating because it feels really immediate,” he told Page Six exclusively at the Broadway opening of the revival of “Parade” on Thursday night.

“Usually, when you do a revival, you can feel a bit of separation from it,” Platt, 29, continued, “but we have little to none, which is a difficult blessing.”

“I think it’s allowed me to embrace whatever Judaism means to me,” Platt said of his deepening relationship to Judaism. “Sometimes we feel if we’re not observant or we don’t keep kosher, or we haven’t been to shul in a while.

“That makes us disconnected from Judaism or not a good Jew or if the theology isn’t something you totally relate to all the time but for me, it’s come to be proud of the cultural and emotional and familial ways that I feel Jewish and embrace that.”

Micaela Diamond, who plays Frank’s wife, Lucille, also spoke to Page Six about performing the show during these fraught times.

“I think Judaism is the oldest racism in the world and I think sometimes because of that we forget it’s still here, whether it’s right in front of us with neo-Nazis protesting in front of our theater or lurking in the shadows, in which Jews are left out of the conversation”, Diamond said to The New York Post.

Diamond, young and talented, only 23 with already two Broadway credits, also noted that “it’s really special that we’re the first two Jewish people to play these roles because it’s so intrinsically a part of the story. I think it’s really important and I feel lucky that we were both cast.” Many might remember Diamond for her portrayal of the young version of pop diva “Cher” in Tony award winning “The Cher Show” on Broadway. Diamond had planned to study musical theater at college when she was cast in the role of Cher as a child and young woman.

“Parade” tells the true story of Leo Frank (played by Platt), a Jewish man from New York who relocated to Georgia to take a position as the manager of a pencil factory. Frank was convicted in 1913 after being falsely accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan and had his own life taken by a virulently anti-Semitic lynch mob comprised of white supremacists.

Frank’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison by then Georgia Governor John M. Slaton in 1915 after he reviewed thousands of pages of testimony that seriously called into question Frank’s guilt.  Frank was subsequently kidnapped from prison by a lynching party and hanged from an oak tree. In the aftermath of Frank’s lynching, the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith was established to monitor anti-Semitism in the United States. Jew hatred in the south saw an uptick with the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations that formed after the emancipation of black slaves in the late 1860s.

Parade originally appeared on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center on December 17, 1998 and closed February 28, 1999, after 39 previews and 84 regular performances. Directed by Harold Prince, it starred Brent Carver as Leo Frank, Carolee Carmello as Lucille Frank, and Christy Carlson Romano as Mary Phagan. The musical ended up touring the states and appeared in London in 2007 and 2011.

The NY City Center Encores off Broadway musical revival series. produced the current Broadway revival of Parade in 2022, when it played at the non-profit and iconic theater on West 55th Street and became the latest NYC Center transfer to Broadway joining ” Into The Woods”, “Sunday In the Park with George”, “Finnian’s Rainbow” and the still running Broadway hit “Chicago”, as the latest City Center Encores show to land on the Great White Way.

Encores has presented 83 musical revivals, including the latest March 2023 production of “Dear World”, an obscure Jerry Heman musical, which starred Angela Lansbury originally in 1969.

Reprising their City Center roles are Krill, Nolan, Johnson, Doyle, Danielle Lee Greaves as Minnie Knight, Alex Joseph Grayson as Jim Conley, Courtnee Carter as Angela, Eddie Cooper as Newt Lee, Douglas Lyons as Riley, and Manoel Felciano as Tom Watson. Joining them are Kelli Barrett as Mrs. Phagan, Howard McGillin, who played Luther Rosser at City Center, as Old Soldier/Judge Roan, and Jake Pedersen as Frankie Epps.